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Welcome to this week's edition of Mississippi Happenings podcast.

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My name is David Olds and I'm joined with my co-host, Jim Newman from Tupelo.

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Jim, how are you buddy?

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Hey, I'm getting a lot better.

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And hello Mississippi.

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oh Or if you, perfect, good, that's way we like you.

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Or as Roger Wicker said today in Mississippi Today, he told Mississippians to get a life.

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So we know how.

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to say when he's got the best retirement benefits, the best healthcare benefits.

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Yeah, I guess he could say things like that.

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And he's doing pretty much everything that Trump tells him to do, correct?

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Got it.

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All right.

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As you all know, our regular subscribers that we do appreciate, we talk a lot about
Mississippi and what's happening in Mississippi and what happens across the nation that

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affects us all.

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ah This is about Mississippi kitchen table issues.

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ah We wanna go back a little bit uh and look at history.

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And it appears in talking to other Democrats and other progressives with the elimination
of DEI, which is diversity, equity, and inclusion, it appears that we're going back to

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segregation.

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ah I know that's my fear and that's a fear of lot of my friends and associates.

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Today joining us

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is Larry Rubin.

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Larry Rubin has a rich history in segregation, desegregation in the 60s.

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Larry was a SNCC, is SNCC, which is Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

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oh He was an organizer in South

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West Georgia and then North Mississippi.

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ah He was working to support Black Southerners who were risking their lives to exercise
their right to vote.

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Larry, it's great to have you with us.

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Great to have you join us.

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David, thank you.

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I have to say you and Jim are doing a wonderful service for the people of Mississippi with
this podcast.

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And uh it's a pleasure and an honor to be with you.

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Thank you, thank you, it's great to have you with us.

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I wanna get your story and your history, but I wanna start out with this.

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As I said earlier, ah with the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion, are we
going back to segregation?

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And you lived through that working with the organizers.

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Tell us your thoughts.

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Well, uh I've been thinking a lot about this and American history, at least uh since,
let's say, Herbert Hoover, uh has always gone forward.

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And then there's been reactionary pushback that pushes it back further than it went
forward.

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Then it comes forward again.

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uh

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For example, uh during the uh 30s, during the Depression, uh people got together and uh
forced the government, forced their representatives to uh pass laws and regulations that

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theoretically would prevent another Depression, but more importantly, gave them more
rights than they had before the Depression.

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The right to unionize, for example.

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uh And the country kept going forward until late 40s and 50s when those in power said,
well, you know, now the war is over.

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We got to pay attention to what these people have done.

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And uh they've cut into our profits with their rights.

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We got to push back.

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And they came up with McCarthyism.

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uh They came up with a system that anybody

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who was fighting for change, particularly at that time, equal rights uh was called a
communist and dismissed.

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The message was, well, these people really aren't for equality.

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uh What they're doing is they're trying to get us under Russian control.

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It was never explained why, but the pushback was anti-communism.

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Similar to today.

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I'm not saying actually that oh there was not real danger from Russia, but the powers that
they used that to squash everything.

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And David, let me interrupt you.

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It's so much like today.

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Attorney General Bondi says she has this Epstein list.

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McCarthy said he had a list of all the communists and we had communists in Congress and
the list was never produced.

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Nobody ever heard of the list or saw it.

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It's the same thing happening again.

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That's right.

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And I would say uh on this score, uh Trump is using anti-Semitism instead of communism.

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uh You know, whatever you say, it's anti-Semitic.

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uh There is real anti-Semitism just like there was real communism, but it's uh not
appropriately, but to just squash everything.

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uh so after...

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uh

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After the Depression up until the 50s, uh we gained a lot.

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And then came McCarthy to push back.

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Then uh came the Civil Rights Movement where people got together and pushed our society
forward.

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We won the Civil Rights Act.

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We won the Voting Rights Act.

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uh We won uh a real separation of church and state in our schools.

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When I grew up,

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I grew up in an 80 % Jewish high school.

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And every day we had to get up and say the Lord's Prayer and recite 10 verses from the
King James Version of the Bible, uh which we did, but uh that kind of thing was

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eliminated.

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uh

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to a Catholic school and it wasn't that bad.

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You should have seen what's funny on Jewish holidays.

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Oh, I bet.

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uh And we won DEI, uh we won a lot of protections.

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And now comes the Trumpists and they say, man, look what the people have done.

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We got to push back and we got to push them back even further than they were when they
started fighting.

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And remember this movement against people's rights didn't start with Trump.

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uh One of the first organizations, a real right wing wing nuts, played the role that the
Ku Klux Klan played, except that they were all in suits and ties, member of the John Birch

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Society.

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Yes.

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And all the people today are the inheritors of the John Bircher Society.

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I mean, really, they're all sons of Birchers.

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You're right, they're SOBs.

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Ha ha.

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Just to back up a little bit, the voting rights of 65 was the landmark federal statute
that prohibited racial discrimination in voting.

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And that came right after the Civil Rights Act of 64.

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So then you got into the...

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with the student group to uh help uh African-Americans vote.

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Tell us about that.

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Well, all my life, I wanted to be an organizer.

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I'm a very young kid.

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That's really all I ever wanted to do.

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I wanted to work to help society move forward to become more equitable, more equal.

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My parents were active in this.

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My father, I mean, we were...

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lower middle class or poor growing up in Philadelphia, however you want to define that.

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My father was a welder, construction worker, and my mother a hairdresser.

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But they both were very involved in uh fighting for equality.

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this was a time when, well, I grew up, when I say lower middle class or poor, was a Jewish
community.

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And this was the time when uh most of our grandparents, the people of my generation,
didn't speak English.

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And uh many of them in the old country uh had been fighters, had uh been trying to
overthrow the Tzar and had to come here out of risking their lives staying over there.

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My mother's family was like that.

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uh Most of my people, uh my grandparents' generation, told us about the pogroms, uh that
is the beatings that were laid on the Jewish community periodically by the authorities.

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uh

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a Russian immigration family.

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Well, yes, I mean, at that time, most of Eastern Europe was Russia.

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It was Poland, Lithuania, uh Ukraine.

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When I say Russia, I'm talking about the map then.

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You're talking, yes, you're talking about the Soviet Union.

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You're talking, the Tsar, the Tsar.

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And uh they came from a tradition of knowing that in order for us to advance, we couldn't
do it alone.

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We too small.

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We had to work with other people.

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And in this country, uh really the first other people that

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people my grandparents' ran into uh were African Americans because they moved to the big
cities.

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uh African Americans moved to the big northern cities around the same time as my
grandparents' generation moved from Russia to the big northern cities.

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They met each other in the ghetto.

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To my grandparents' generation, these were Americans.

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You know, they spoke English.

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They had been here untold generations.

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uh They were Americans.

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uh Through the view of my grandparents' generation, uh you know, we were Jewish
immigrants.

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Everybody else was different types of Americans.

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You had your Italians, your Irish, blacks, Greeks.

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It was all the same.

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Except that, and when we said white,

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What we meant was white Anglo-Saxon Americans.

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the uh people leading the country, the Rockefellers type.

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Nobody else considered themselves white.

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As a matter of fact, if you asked any ethnic group, they would say the same thing.

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There's been a lot of studies about how various ethnic groups became quote white.

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Anyway, they formed alliances, my grandparents did, with African Americans in the ghetto.

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uh

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And there was something else too.

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Go ahead to the 40s.

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uh When I was growing up in the late 40s, and we were learning about the Holocaust.

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Now, we knew that Jews had been discriminated against uh in Russia, uh the same kind of
ways that African Americans were discriminated against here.

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uh

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couldn't work in certain jobs, you couldn't live, uh a certain place in Russia was the
palace settlement.

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uh You were highly segregated from the rest of society.

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And we related to blacks having the same thing here in America.

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But then we learned about the Holocaust.

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And uh also at the same time, there was a tremendous wave of antisemitism.

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I'm talking about the late 40s in the United States.

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And we said, you know, we better become very conscious of uh fighting to make sure that
things like that don't happen in America.

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And the leading group that's fighting for the same thing are African-Americans.

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uh So, you know, we uh had on the ground alliances.

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uh When the civil rights movement came along,

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There I was coming from a family that was very conscious of the things that I just said,
joining with other people to protect our own rights and fight for our own rights.

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uh We saw that at that time, Congress and the Senate, because of the seniority system, was
being run by white uh

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segregationists from the south.

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And the reason it was was because of seniority.

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And these people got elected again and again and again and became chair of this committee
and chair of that committee and ran the country.

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And they were taking away the rights that our parents had won in the New Deal.

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Our parents following our grandparents became active, won the New Deal and all that means.

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uh

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Now it was our turn to protect what our parents had won.

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And that took many forms, many forms.

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But one form it took was answering the question, how do we uh take the whole country out
of the hands of these white segregationists who are running the country?

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The answer was the reason they got elected again and again.

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was because many of their constituents, in some places, most of their constituents were
not allowed to vote.

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They were majority black uh constituencies and black people were not allowed to vote.

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And we knew if uh black folks in the South were allowed to vote, they would vote these
people out of office.

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To quote Jim, these SOBs out of office.

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uh

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And so we joined the civil rights movement uh to fight for ourselves and to fight for the
country.

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uh For me, it wasn't even a question of thinking about it.

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What happened, I was in uh college in Ohio and the chair at that time was named Chuck
McDew happened to be a black Jewish guy, matter of

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he came to my college, NAR college, actually to meet with his girlfriend.

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He wasn't even want to make a speech.

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And I joined them for lunch in the cafeteria and we got to talk and he said, why don't you
come down, you know, become an organizer with us, meaning Southwest Georgia at the time.

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And, uh, this is the kind of thing my folks did.

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So I said, sure.

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Next thing I knew.

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I was being shot at in Boston, Georgia.

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We arrested for trespassing.

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And what it was, we parked our car, was three of us.

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Jack Chatfield, who was deceased.

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And uh well, there was three of us.

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John O'Neill was the third.

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He went on to form the Free Southern Theater.

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we were doing voter rights canvassing, knocking on people's doors, talking to them about
voting, registering to vote, getting to know them.

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And we parked our car, one wheel, uh, on the uh parking lot of a general store.

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And we're walking along the road, talking to folks.

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Deputy Sheriff comes up, he arrested us for trespassing on that parking lot where one
wheel of our car was on.

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and he uh handcuffed us in the back.

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It's different from being handcuffed in the front, I've learned.

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Handcuffed in the back is, especially if you have to sit, is very painful because you have
to lean back.

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uh Anyway, that was my first experience.

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Now, I have to say, if you were to ask most white people, uh most white students,

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why they went south to work for the civil rights movement.

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A lot, most would say that in their school, they were brought up to believe that we were
the land of the free and the home of the brave and everybody was equal.

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And then on television, they saw police chief Bull Connor in Birmingham turning fire hoses
on people just

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fighting for the right to vote and the dogs uh and the people would say that and we were
shocked.

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So we went south to uh help make real what we were taught in school.

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I saw the same TV, but I was not shocked.

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I understood that one of the basis is

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of America, of our economic and social system, was segregation and discrimination.

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And I expected the power structure to fight back when people got together to fight.

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One of the differences I said before, every time people get together and fight, the
country moves ahead and then there's reaction uh and

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people are pushed back.

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The difference is the motion forward are always people getting together and fighting for
their own self-interest, their real self-interest.

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The pushback is always led by those in power who lie to people uh and make them think that
their self-interest is not what it really is.

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uh They lie to them and make them feel that their self-interest is what the power
structure says it is.

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And that's the pushback.

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And that's where we want to

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is the power structure capitalism?

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Well, it's defined in a lot of different ways.

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There's a lot of pieces to it.

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That's why I just use that term.

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But I will say a good piece of it is the type of capitalism we have here.

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Sweden, Finland, Canada, England, they all are capitalist countries.

222
00:21:55,106 --> 00:21:57,646
But it's a different type of capitalism.

223
00:21:58,858 --> 00:22:02,608
And, you know, that's a whole different story.

224
00:22:02,608 --> 00:22:05,520
I don't want to get too far up in the, the sky.

225
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:09,941
uh And I think that's what's happening today.

226
00:22:10,501 --> 00:22:20,374
The Trumpists have lied to people and said, you know, we are going to make America great
again.

227
00:22:20,374 --> 00:22:23,085
Well, what they mean is the fifties.

228
00:22:23,085 --> 00:22:28,033
uh When the New Deal.

229
00:22:28,033 --> 00:22:29,824
was really at a tight.

230
00:22:29,824 --> 00:22:40,129
They're talking about making America great back when all the things that they are against
today were real and on the ground.

231
00:22:42,271 --> 00:22:48,794
And by the way, when I say history shows, that sounds very, uh

232
00:22:50,338 --> 00:22:56,218
ephemeral, you know, that as if history was a thing into itself, there was a force called
history.

233
00:22:56,218 --> 00:22:57,458
There's not.

234
00:22:57,538 --> 00:23:00,778
There's just people doing things.

235
00:23:00,778 --> 00:23:03,818
And there's some sometimes there's a pattern of people doing things.

236
00:23:03,818 --> 00:23:19,958
But if we don't consciously fight back today and get people together again, like they were
in the 30s and 40s and like they were in the 60s, the type of fascism

237
00:23:19,958 --> 00:23:24,666
that is being perpetrated will last.

238
00:23:24,666 --> 00:23:33,065
There's no God-given order that if you don't fight back, history will change.

239
00:23:33,065 --> 00:23:37,265
Okay, well, you say the people have to fight back.

240
00:23:37,345 --> 00:23:39,525
We still have the ballot box.

241
00:23:39,545 --> 00:23:41,665
We haven't lost that yet.

242
00:23:41,725 --> 00:23:52,825
And in North Mississippi and here in Tupelo, in the 16th Legislative District, we just had
elections.

243
00:23:53,205 --> 00:24:00,865
In none of these elections, where there more than about 12 to 15 % of the

244
00:24:01,833 --> 00:24:04,633
registered voters participating.

245
00:24:05,813 --> 00:24:22,193
This fight back that occurred in the 50s came about with voters turning out and I don't
want to necessarily say taking to the streets, but they did to emphasize their point.

246
00:24:23,193 --> 00:24:26,073
How do we get voters back?

247
00:24:26,813 --> 00:24:29,113
How do we get them engaged again?

248
00:24:29,113 --> 00:24:31,313
How bad does this have to go?

249
00:24:31,742 --> 00:24:39,886
Well, I'm going to say that I am not of the belief that the worst things get the angrier
people get.

250
00:24:39,927 --> 00:24:48,471
The fact is the worst things get the more people give up if they don't see an alternative,
which is the danger under Trump.

251
00:24:48,471 --> 00:24:56,576
uh I'm going to answer your question, but I'm going to digress a minute to my own uh my
own experience.

252
00:24:56,956 --> 00:25:00,470
And I'm going to lead back to your question about

253
00:25:00,470 --> 00:25:05,852
What can we do today uh to encourage people to vote?

254
00:25:05,852 --> 00:25:07,733
And why is it that so few do?

255
00:25:07,733 --> 00:25:27,092
uh When the modern civil rights movement, let's say in the late 50s started, uh it started
the way most movements start actually, from a group of uh idealistic people who see things

256
00:25:27,092 --> 00:25:28,402
they don't like.

257
00:25:29,024 --> 00:25:31,435
and take action as individuals.

258
00:25:32,296 --> 00:25:50,826
We had the freedom rides where people uh from all over the country, led by the Congress of
Racial Equality, uh got on buses and traveled in the South to show the country that the

259
00:25:50,826 --> 00:25:59,106
South was not obeying federal law, the Interstate Commerce Commission law uh that said,

260
00:25:59,106 --> 00:26:06,050
when you're traveling interstate, bus stops are like little uh patches of the federal
government.

261
00:26:06,050 --> 00:26:09,172
And you must obey federal law, not state law.

262
00:26:09,172 --> 00:26:14,214
State law is at that time required by law segregation.

263
00:26:14,435 --> 00:26:20,358
You would be breaking the law if a white walker were black, but not in bus stops.

264
00:26:20,358 --> 00:26:24,340
uh So that was one thing.

265
00:26:24,340 --> 00:26:27,962
uh Other folks, uh

266
00:26:30,579 --> 00:26:42,380
namely, HBCU students, black college students, sat in at lunch counters saying that we
want the right to buy a hamburger.

267
00:26:43,460 --> 00:26:45,540
This is an individual thing.

268
00:26:45,580 --> 00:26:48,900
And a lot of them, that's what it was about, was about a hamburger.

269
00:26:50,460 --> 00:26:53,949
I'm digressing a little bit at the founding of SNCC, the main.

270
00:26:53,949 --> 00:26:55,789
it made McDonald's.

271
00:26:57,607 --> 00:26:59,767
It was before McDonald's.

272
00:27:00,768 --> 00:27:02,188
Yeah.

273
00:27:02,188 --> 00:27:05,229
The main speech was, it's about more than a hamburger.

274
00:27:05,229 --> 00:27:24,155
uh Out of that group of people, the uh young black college students, not just HBCUs,
historically black colleges and universities in the South, but also in the North.

275
00:27:24,155 --> 00:27:26,235
uh

276
00:27:27,511 --> 00:27:41,420
They were doing a lot of demonstrations and they were calling on Martin Luther King and
SCLC, his group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to help.

277
00:27:42,081 --> 00:27:50,846
And SCLC got a little overwhelmed and they said is what we need to do is to coordinate all
these activities.

278
00:27:51,047 --> 00:27:57,351
And they called a meeting of people from across the South and across the country.

279
00:27:57,547 --> 00:28:03,054
I say people, mean young Black students to figure out how to coordinate activities.

280
00:28:04,417 --> 00:28:12,297
And from that meeting came the student nonviolent coordinating committee.

281
00:28:13,912 --> 00:28:17,434
very quickly after it was founded.

282
00:28:17,434 --> 00:28:35,906
uh students went to communities, uh mostly not where they were from, some where they were
from, and started to talk to people in the communities, in Mississippi in particular.

283
00:28:36,867 --> 00:28:43,523
What they heard was, know, uh we never go anywhere on buses, what do we care about?

284
00:28:43,523 --> 00:28:46,483
bus stations and we can't afford a hamburger.

285
00:28:46,903 --> 00:28:50,103
No use if we have the right to buy a hamburger if we can't afford one.

286
00:28:50,803 --> 00:28:59,043
And the reason we are so oppressed is we don't have the right to vote.

287
00:28:59,383 --> 00:29:09,179
If we elected people that really supported us, that looked like us, that had our interests
at heart.

288
00:29:10,543 --> 00:29:15,846
if we became part of the power structure, which was a term used then, things would change.

289
00:29:16,247 --> 00:29:27,214
So very quickly, after SNCC was founded, about a year or so later, the emphasis went to
voter rights.

290
00:29:27,214 --> 00:29:29,115
uh

291
00:29:30,691 --> 00:29:31,933
how should I say this?

292
00:29:31,933 --> 00:29:33,334
Activation.

293
00:29:33,956 --> 00:29:41,365
Everybody had the right to vote in the South, but they couldn't exercise it.

294
00:29:42,248 --> 00:29:47,925
So the emphasis was on winning the right to exercise your right to vote.

295
00:29:48,083 --> 00:30:04,908
think one of the, also one of the things that you've left out is that after the second
world war, of course, the college rights, but the blacks gained, the veterans gained the

296
00:30:04,908 --> 00:30:07,238
right to college educations.

297
00:30:07,558 --> 00:30:17,127
And all of a sudden, by the late 1950s, we were beginning to have an educated black
population.

298
00:30:17,127 --> 00:30:21,529
that was prepared to do the things that you were talking about.

299
00:30:22,341 --> 00:30:24,341
Well, that's true.

300
00:30:24,643 --> 00:30:30,968
And a lot of the people in SNCC came from that background.

301
00:30:30,968 --> 00:30:38,534
These were the most brilliant students in these HBCUs and their parents are the people
that you're talking about.

302
00:30:39,395 --> 00:30:50,774
But in the South, when I said that people went into communities and were told that what we
want is the right to right to exercise their right to vote, those people

303
00:30:50,882 --> 00:30:53,113
were also World War II veterans.

304
00:30:53,113 --> 00:30:58,774
uh Most of them did not have a college education.

305
00:30:59,114 --> 00:31:00,735
Many of them were sharecroppers.

306
00:31:00,735 --> 00:31:09,117
uh A disproportionate number of them though owned their own little farms or little stores.

307
00:31:09,237 --> 00:31:20,600
So they were uh in some ways uh protected from the uh violence.

308
00:31:21,308 --> 00:31:24,230
that people trying to get the right to vote felt.

309
00:31:24,230 --> 00:31:37,597
If you try to vote at that time, uh you could be beaten, you could be uh fired, well, you
were fired if you're working for a white person, and most black people did.

310
00:31:37,717 --> 00:31:44,141
You could have the mortgage pulled on your house, become homeless, or you could uh be
killed.

311
00:31:44,141 --> 00:31:50,684
Seven people from 1960 to 66,

312
00:31:51,148 --> 00:31:57,913
seven leaders just in Mississippi and just in the voter rights movement were killed.

313
00:31:59,555 --> 00:32:16,268
But the people that really led the movement were people that were veterans of World War II
that had been fighting in their communities for years for the right to vote.

314
00:32:17,029 --> 00:32:21,002
And those are the people that the SNCC people spoke to.

315
00:32:21,317 --> 00:32:26,199
particularly Bob Moses, who was a SNCC leader, went around speaking to these folks.

316
00:32:26,199 --> 00:32:31,801
And they said, we want help in our fight.

317
00:32:32,261 --> 00:32:37,843
It's our fight and we've been fighting, but we need help in certain areas.

318
00:32:37,843 --> 00:32:42,985
For one thing, we need help in getting the nation to understand what's happening down
here.

319
00:32:42,985 --> 00:32:48,137
uh We need help with just doing a lot of the routine work.

320
00:32:48,137 --> 00:32:49,967
I mean, we all have jobs.

321
00:32:50,108 --> 00:32:51,348
I'm a farmer.

322
00:32:52,036 --> 00:32:54,337
I work in a store, I own a store.

323
00:32:54,879 --> 00:32:59,396
And at that time you had to lick envelopes to get the message out.

324
00:32:59,602 --> 00:33:01,404
And we don't have time to do this.

325
00:33:01,404 --> 00:33:04,186
We want to concentrate on being leaders.

326
00:33:04,747 --> 00:33:21,900
So what people in SNCC did was go to communities, live in them and help local people do
what they've been doing all along, but lending skills and time

327
00:33:22,148 --> 00:33:26,588
and connections that people didn't necessarily have.

328
00:33:27,108 --> 00:33:40,188
At first, in Mississippi, all the people that came from SNCC were black because the
leadership of SNCC felt it was just too dangerous for black and white people to live

329
00:33:40,188 --> 00:33:43,048
together in Mississippi, to work together.

330
00:33:43,048 --> 00:33:49,668
If you see a black and white person walking down the street, you were a target.

331
00:33:49,668 --> 00:33:51,094
Now that was different.

332
00:33:51,094 --> 00:33:55,867
in Southwest Georgia, which is why they sent me to Southwest Georgia first.

333
00:33:55,908 --> 00:34:01,112
It was decided there, uh it wasn't as dangerous.

334
00:34:01,653 --> 00:34:15,263
But when we came down from the North, particularly whites, we were caught outside
agitators by the Eastlands.

335
00:34:15,344 --> 00:34:21,185
Senator Eastland gave a speech about me in the Senate talking about that

336
00:34:21,185 --> 00:34:22,575
I was this communist.

337
00:34:22,575 --> 00:34:24,766
He didn't say Jewish, but he meant that.

338
00:34:24,766 --> 00:34:26,706
And you could get that from the speech.

339
00:34:27,227 --> 00:34:31,718
Outside agitator that our folks are happy here.

340
00:34:31,718 --> 00:34:35,619
He said folks in the Senate, he was going around the state, say that word.

341
00:34:35,619 --> 00:34:36,989
He said something else.

342
00:34:36,989 --> 00:34:45,778
uh But it made it seem like me and people like me were leaders of the civil rights
movement.

343
00:34:45,778 --> 00:34:47,431
Just stern people up.

344
00:34:47,752 --> 00:34:49,952
That absolutely was not true.

345
00:34:50,660 --> 00:34:55,357
uh In fact, I could never understand what an outside agitator was.

346
00:34:55,699 --> 00:34:57,314
For you weren't from Georgia.

347
00:34:57,314 --> 00:34:58,917
You weren't from Georgia.

348
00:34:59,138 --> 00:35:01,429
Well, that was an outsider.

349
00:35:02,150 --> 00:35:04,250
But what's an agitator?

350
00:35:04,250 --> 00:35:21,158
uh How do you agitate people to take action, to risk their lives, to risk getting
beatings, unless from their own experience uh they felt oppressed?

351
00:35:21,259 --> 00:35:22,599
We were helping people.

352
00:35:22,599 --> 00:35:24,700
uh

353
00:35:26,798 --> 00:35:30,589
fight for their own freedom.

354
00:35:30,589 --> 00:35:42,692
As a matter of fact, going back to Roger Wicker, I met him a few years ago here in Holly
Springs and I introduced myself and I said who I was.

355
00:35:43,052 --> 00:35:46,773
And he said, you were one of those outside agitators.

356
00:35:47,914 --> 00:35:56,976
And I said to him, I was an outsider, but you were the agitator, meaning his parents, you

357
00:35:57,348 --> 00:36:00,108
You were the one agitating people, not me.

358
00:36:00,508 --> 00:36:02,668
There was inside agitators.

359
00:36:03,308 --> 00:36:05,629
There was no such thing as an outside agitator.

360
00:36:05,629 --> 00:36:14,319
Well, while all of this was going on in the South, there was actually going on in the
North with Adam Clayton Powell, right?

361
00:36:14,338 --> 00:36:15,853
Yeah, well, that's true.

362
00:36:15,853 --> 00:36:17,920
I want to get back to answering your question.

363
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:20,958
And I said all of this for a reason.

364
00:36:22,873 --> 00:36:29,134
Fighting for the right to vote came from folks in the community.

365
00:36:29,134 --> 00:36:33,155
uh They got together.

366
00:36:33,896 --> 00:36:37,036
SNCC and other groups helped them.

367
00:36:37,997 --> 00:36:42,138
We were not leaders, we were organizers.

368
00:36:42,318 --> 00:36:46,239
And when I said I wanted to be an organizer growing up, that's what I meant.

369
00:36:46,699 --> 00:36:48,179
Not being a leader.

370
00:36:48,339 --> 00:36:50,984
An organizer helps people to lead.

371
00:36:50,984 --> 00:36:51,777
Right.

372
00:36:52,206 --> 00:36:57,260
you know, helps with the technical stuff, brings people together, helps build leaders.

373
00:36:57,260 --> 00:37:02,344
uh Well, that's what SNCC was doing.

374
00:37:02,765 --> 00:37:16,256
But the movement for the right to vote came from people that understood that they needed
the right to vote in order to live, to live.

375
00:37:16,256 --> 00:37:22,120
uh And the first round of voting

376
00:37:22,212 --> 00:37:27,412
after that was won, the voting turnout was very high.

377
00:37:28,532 --> 00:37:32,072
I'll give you another example in Mississippi.

378
00:37:33,072 --> 00:37:51,672
During Reconstruction in 1866, maybe it was 1865, the first year that blacks got the right
to vote, and I have the voting rolls.

379
00:37:51,790 --> 00:37:54,762
from Marshall County from that century.

380
00:37:55,643 --> 00:38:00,587
The voting percentage was fantastic, was very high.

381
00:38:01,028 --> 00:38:01,688
Why?

382
00:38:01,688 --> 00:38:11,556
Because in both cases, people knew that that right to vote came from their own fight.

383
00:38:12,117 --> 00:38:14,219
They identified with that right to vote.

384
00:38:14,219 --> 00:38:20,544
uh The people that were running for office at first were people like them.

385
00:38:21,241 --> 00:38:26,083
They understood the right to vote not to be just one abstract right.

386
00:38:26,663 --> 00:38:29,494
You know, I mean, nobody wants the right to vote just to vote.

387
00:38:29,494 --> 00:38:31,005
It's a pain.

388
00:38:31,905 --> 00:38:47,771
They understood that they themselves won the right to vote, that they were electing people
like themselves to office, and that this would lead to a better society.

389
00:38:48,251 --> 00:38:50,332
Now I'm going to answer your question.

390
00:38:51,256 --> 00:39:09,736
That uh excitement, that enthusiasm, that feeling of involvement, that sure knowledge that
I can vote because of what we did was lost, not 100%.

391
00:39:09,806 --> 00:39:12,167
But I'll give you an example in Mississippi.

392
00:39:12,167 --> 00:39:17,810
uh Over the years, maybe it started with the voting rights bill.

393
00:39:18,371 --> 00:39:20,686
Remember what I'm talking about.

394
00:39:20,686 --> 00:39:22,777
was before the Voting Rights Bill.

395
00:39:23,417 --> 00:39:41,735
And we would have gotten the right to vote uh because the way the system was set up here
in Mississippi was clearly racially uh divisive, was clearly uh discriminating against

396
00:39:41,735 --> 00:39:50,558
black people because the system was you had to pass certain tests and the person that
decided whether you passed or not was the registrar.

397
00:39:52,152 --> 00:39:53,653
That's the only person.

398
00:39:54,153 --> 00:39:59,817
And we had all sorts of statistics showing that the registrars had failed.

399
00:39:59,877 --> 00:40:02,152
I'm making up this number because I don't know.

400
00:40:02,152 --> 00:40:06,601
80 % of Black people and it passed 100 % of white people.

401
00:40:06,742 --> 00:40:07,703
It just couldn't be.

402
00:40:07,703 --> 00:40:13,526
uh The Voting Rights Act codified it.

403
00:40:13,987 --> 00:40:17,589
But we also lost something in it being law.

404
00:40:17,950 --> 00:40:21,782
And then the leadership just concentrating

405
00:40:21,975 --> 00:40:23,285
on elections.

406
00:40:24,106 --> 00:40:32,972
We lost the feeling of involvement from folks.

407
00:40:32,972 --> 00:40:44,900
Each year, elections seemed further and further in the air, especially as people got
elected that didn't represent the people that voted for them.

408
00:40:44,900 --> 00:40:51,444
People could vote, but the people got elected weren't all that different from when they
couldn't vote.

409
00:40:51,876 --> 00:41:02,336
And that's because leadership no longer concentrated on organizing, on bringing people
together, not just around the right to vote, but about everything.

410
00:41:02,896 --> 00:41:12,396
Getting people together to fight for a better society in many ways and having candidates
come from the movement, it got turned around.

411
00:41:12,496 --> 00:41:15,976
Now candidates were seen as the leaders of the movement.

412
00:41:16,776 --> 00:41:20,196
So Jim, that's my answer to your question.

413
00:41:20,376 --> 00:41:21,948
Why is it?

414
00:41:22,052 --> 00:41:26,071
that people by and large don't vote.

415
00:41:26,071 --> 00:41:29,412
It's because they feel disconnected from the system.

416
00:41:29,412 --> 00:41:33,992
It's because it's no longer their system.

417
00:41:33,992 --> 00:41:35,996
I'll give you a counterexample.

418
00:41:36,170 --> 00:41:41,643
Okay, Larry, let me interrupt you for just a second here, but hang on to that thought.

419
00:41:41,923 --> 00:41:48,107
Earlier you were talking about Senator Eastland when he talked about you.

420
00:41:48,107 --> 00:42:02,454
ah At that same time, he was speculating that then recent disappearance of Shermer,
Cheney, and Goodman was a hoax.

421
00:42:02,455 --> 00:42:05,288
And those were the three civil rights

422
00:42:05,288 --> 00:42:07,930
activists that were murdered.

423
00:42:07,930 --> 00:42:14,755
uh yeah, in his and go ahead.

424
00:42:14,755 --> 00:42:15,625
Now go ahead.

425
00:42:15,625 --> 00:42:16,866
Yeah, Larry, go ahead.

426
00:42:16,866 --> 00:42:19,626
No, that's what led to that speech.

427
00:42:19,626 --> 00:42:21,532
uh

428
00:42:23,044 --> 00:42:30,384
One of my first, I'll talk to you the way it happened to me, the way I got involved in
exactly what you're saying.

429
00:42:30,984 --> 00:42:46,064
One of my first jobs for SNCC was to bring books from the North that were being donated by
schools and churches that don't use these books, they're old books.

430
00:42:46,064 --> 00:42:51,204
They were donating them to the freedom libraries that went

431
00:42:51,777 --> 00:43:04,877
with freedom schools that were being set up in the summer of 1964 as part of building the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and winning the right to vote.

432
00:43:05,318 --> 00:43:15,866
My job, and there was others too, was to carry these books from places in the north to
places all around Mississippi.

433
00:43:16,407 --> 00:43:19,790
And I was doing just that.

434
00:43:19,910 --> 00:43:20,330
It was...

435
00:43:20,330 --> 00:43:20,983
uh

436
00:43:20,983 --> 00:43:23,623
I believe April of 64.

437
00:43:24,206 --> 00:43:29,550
And myself and uh there was four other people.

438
00:43:30,491 --> 00:43:32,213
I was the only white guy.

439
00:43:32,213 --> 00:43:37,376
We were all arrested in Oxford, right down the road from Holly Springs.

440
00:43:38,062 --> 00:43:44,727
We were arrested on the charge of, and this is the exact charge.

441
00:43:46,653 --> 00:43:56,439
carrying printed material, advocating the overthrow of the government of the state of
Mississippi.

442
00:43:56,817 --> 00:43:57,572
my.

443
00:43:58,035 --> 00:44:05,735
And it was one of the laws that the legislature passed when they got word that a bunch of
volunteers were coming down to Mississippi.

444
00:44:07,355 --> 00:44:14,815
So Sheriff Boyce Bratton, who stood about three foot nothing, stopped us.

445
00:44:16,215 --> 00:44:25,235
mean, his gun was dragging along the dirt in his holster, stopped us.

446
00:44:25,235 --> 00:44:28,095
We were hauling these books in a U-Haul.

447
00:44:29,876 --> 00:44:43,216
which was foolish because I was driving a Lark, a Studebaker Lark, which was the last car
was like a tin Lizzie, the last car to be hauling a U-Haul around, but that's what we were

448
00:44:43,216 --> 00:44:43,896
doing.

449
00:44:43,976 --> 00:44:45,236
He stopped.

450
00:44:46,416 --> 00:44:56,296
He took a look in the U-Haul, saw books, went to a judge, got a search warrant based on
what I just said.

451
00:44:56,416 --> 00:44:57,656
It said,

452
00:44:59,289 --> 00:45:05,721
I have reason to believe and do believe that they are carrying printed material, et
cetera, et cetera.

453
00:45:05,721 --> 00:45:13,623
uh And then he unloaded the U-Haul and he was absolutely right.

454
00:45:13,843 --> 00:45:18,824
We were carrying books that threatened to overthrow the state of Mississippi.

455
00:45:18,824 --> 00:45:29,497
For example, sets of the Bobsie Twins, Bobsie Twins mysteries, sets of Nancy Drew
mysteries, Winnie the Pooh.

456
00:45:30,736 --> 00:45:34,558
old dictionaries, old histories.

457
00:45:34,899 --> 00:45:38,421
You know, these were books discarded by people that no longer use them.

458
00:45:38,421 --> 00:45:49,689
But the reason I'm saying they were right is because the purpose of these books was to
help uh African American kids learn to read.

459
00:45:50,310 --> 00:45:56,374
And that really threatened the government of the state of Mississippi at that time.

460
00:45:56,374 --> 00:45:58,395
So we were thrown in jail.

461
00:45:59,443 --> 00:46:09,909
uh we were investigated by the State Sovereignty Commission, which was set up by the
government to undermine the civil rights movement.

462
00:46:09,909 --> 00:46:11,720
See, they're state sovereign.

463
00:46:11,720 --> 00:46:17,032
But Mississippi didn't say, you know, we are denying people the right to vote.

464
00:46:17,032 --> 00:46:19,433
They said, we're for states' rights.

465
00:46:19,674 --> 00:46:22,656
And in this state, we do this and this.

466
00:46:22,656 --> 00:46:29,729
So they set up the State Sovereignty Commission, not the commission to undermine equality.

467
00:46:29,781 --> 00:46:31,081
But that's what it was.

468
00:46:31,602 --> 00:46:40,725
And these uh investigators came and they uh took us one by one and they scared the crap
out of us.

469
00:46:40,905 --> 00:46:44,247
One of them said, we haven't hung us a hebe in a while.

470
00:46:44,247 --> 00:46:45,687
What are you thinking at?

471
00:46:46,608 --> 00:46:51,289
To me, look, I'm about to get lynched.

472
00:46:53,050 --> 00:46:56,171
They kept us in there, were harassing us like that.

473
00:46:56,572 --> 00:46:58,042
Then they let us go.

474
00:46:58,338 --> 00:47:00,620
This was Oxford Mississippi Steel.

475
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:03,321
The home of Ole Miss.

476
00:47:04,321 --> 00:47:07,423
In fact, I'm gonna digress a minute and I'll get back to my story.

477
00:47:07,703 --> 00:47:18,026
When we left, Boyce Spratton said to me, if you ever come back into Lafayette County,
we're gonna kill you.

478
00:47:18,508 --> 00:47:21,489
Now, sheriffs said that to SNCC people in every county.

479
00:47:22,490 --> 00:47:28,582
And always the end of the story is, well, you know, I went back anyway, not me.

480
00:47:29,552 --> 00:47:32,853
I've been in the South for five years by that time.

481
00:47:32,853 --> 00:47:35,154
And I took that very seriously.

482
00:47:35,495 --> 00:47:44,809
And when a group of uh SNCC people were invited to speak at Ole Miss, uh I didn't go.

483
00:47:44,809 --> 00:47:50,741
And I felt very bad, I'm just being a coward.

484
00:47:51,361 --> 00:47:57,714
But the fact is when these students were coming back to Holly Springs, which was our uh
headquarters,

485
00:47:58,142 --> 00:48:02,958
Sheriff Bratton stopped them in the car, hauled them all out and said, where's Reuben?

486
00:48:03,299 --> 00:48:04,990
Ha ha ha ha ha!

487
00:48:08,089 --> 00:48:08,594
Hmm

488
00:48:08,594 --> 00:48:11,000
what was their answer?

489
00:48:11,548 --> 00:48:13,456
He's back at home, you think he's nuts?

490
00:48:13,456 --> 00:48:15,180
You told him you were gonna kill him.

491
00:48:15,949 --> 00:48:17,913
He's back in Lafayette County.

492
00:48:18,035 --> 00:48:20,837
He's in Marshall County, he's not gonna come here.

493
00:48:20,837 --> 00:48:25,091
know, we're only but so brave.

494
00:48:25,091 --> 00:48:32,597
uh Anyway, but getting back to the story, and this leads back to Eastland, I'm going a
long way around.

495
00:48:32,597 --> 00:48:43,686
uh We got arrested again in Holly Springs, this time for something about travel, uh our
trailer, I don't know.

496
00:48:44,187 --> 00:48:45,778
And I noticed...

497
00:48:46,376 --> 00:48:57,542
that somewhere either in Oxford or in Holly Springs, my address book had been stolen, had
been ripped off.

498
00:48:58,203 --> 00:49:10,370
I read later in the State Sovereignty Commission reports on us, which are now public, and
you can get more online, that uh the State Sovereignty Commission stole it down there in

499
00:49:10,370 --> 00:49:12,291
Oxford.

500
00:49:12,291 --> 00:49:14,252
Okay, this is all in a...

501
00:49:15,806 --> 00:49:19,978
Fast forward to the middle of July.

502
00:49:21,100 --> 00:49:36,050
Senator Eastland had been going around the state saying that disappearance, this is before
they found the bodies, the disappearance of the three civil rights workers uh was a hoax,

503
00:49:36,050 --> 00:49:36,750
as you said.

504
00:49:36,750 --> 00:49:45,396
uh And he said, they are voluntarily disappear and probably

505
00:49:45,396 --> 00:49:50,436
laughing it up on Moscow gold in a New York hotel room.

506
00:49:50,856 --> 00:49:56,736
So he got in, there are a bunch of Jewish communists, New York, Moscow, you you get it.

507
00:49:58,216 --> 00:50:04,036
Then he said the same thing to the Senate, except not the same way.

508
00:50:04,196 --> 00:50:06,956
He said, the people of Mississippi are very patient.

509
00:50:07,096 --> 00:50:09,116
We think it's a hoax.

510
00:50:09,116 --> 00:50:11,216
Nobody has proven it's not.

511
00:50:11,376 --> 00:50:13,816
And I have evidence.

512
00:50:15,433 --> 00:50:21,854
that the communists are leading the civil rights movement in Mississippi.

513
00:50:22,535 --> 00:50:28,616
The implication is if the communists were leading it, then this must be a hoax.

514
00:50:29,016 --> 00:50:31,117
You had to be there to get the logic.

515
00:50:31,797 --> 00:50:34,498
But that was his message.

516
00:50:34,618 --> 00:50:40,439
And that's why he gave a speech about me, that I was a leader being a communist.

517
00:50:41,139 --> 00:50:44,414
The first thing I did is I went to the real leader of the

518
00:50:44,414 --> 00:50:46,446
project here in the holidays.

519
00:50:46,446 --> 00:50:47,907
I never said I was a leader.

520
00:50:47,907 --> 00:50:48,638
You're a leader.

521
00:50:48,638 --> 00:50:50,649
These are local people.

522
00:50:51,350 --> 00:50:54,252
All the thing I said is I stuff envelopes for you.

523
00:50:54,272 --> 00:50:55,613
You I do what you tell me to do.

524
00:50:55,613 --> 00:50:56,314
I'm not a leader.

525
00:50:56,314 --> 00:51:05,261
uh But anyway, that's a long way around getting to your question about what Eastland was
doing.

526
00:51:05,742 --> 00:51:13,524
By the way, uh we had some kids here.

527
00:51:13,524 --> 00:51:17,868
whose parents worked for the FBI in the North.

528
00:51:17,868 --> 00:51:25,073
And one was a congressman at that time from San Francisco who had worked for the FBI in
the past.

529
00:51:25,594 --> 00:51:34,222
And this is when everybody in Mississippi uh in charge of the police were floundering
around, quote, looking for the bodies.

530
00:51:34,222 --> 00:51:37,284
uh And they couldn't find them.

531
00:51:37,284 --> 00:51:40,209
That's why they were free to say it's a hoax.

532
00:51:40,209 --> 00:51:41,089
Mm-hmm.

533
00:51:43,070 --> 00:51:54,517
these people called their parents, you know, that either worked for the FBI or had
contacts and said, listen, they better stop floundering around because uh everybody's

534
00:51:54,517 --> 00:51:57,528
starting to question, how come you can't find a body?

535
00:51:57,528 --> 00:51:59,540
They're starting to question, is it a hoax?

536
00:51:59,540 --> 00:52:04,712
Because the other side of not finding them is maybe they're dead.

537
00:52:05,273 --> 00:52:09,375
The next week, the FBI quote, found the bodies.

538
00:52:09,375 --> 00:52:11,116
As a matter of fact, uh

539
00:52:11,472 --> 00:52:19,299
At that time, they were dredging the rivers of Mississippi and they kept popping up with
bodies of young black people.

540
00:52:20,181 --> 00:52:21,882
And they just coming up with too many bodies.

541
00:52:21,882 --> 00:52:24,044
People would kill over the years.

542
00:52:24,545 --> 00:52:25,876
There's a bunch of bodies.

543
00:52:25,876 --> 00:52:27,387
They had to cut that out.

544
00:52:31,505 --> 00:52:32,259
Um.

545
00:52:33,810 --> 00:52:45,283
catching back up then, you know, and going into what Jim said about oh getting people
motivated, getting people in action.

546
00:52:45,903 --> 00:53:02,498
It appears from what my perception of what you're telling us is, then it's, it's by God,
it's about time that we get involved and get the people motivated, show them that there is

547
00:53:02,498 --> 00:53:03,628
a way.

548
00:53:03,740 --> 00:53:07,594
to change and that their vote matters.

549
00:53:07,594 --> 00:53:09,600
uh

550
00:53:10,344 --> 00:53:12,986
Yes, but I want to be clear.

551
00:53:13,487 --> 00:53:15,148
It's harder.

552
00:53:15,429 --> 00:53:27,297
The fight is harder today than it was in the 60s because in the 60s we had laws protecting
people.

553
00:53:27,519 --> 00:53:33,454
And for example, in the 60s, murder was illegal.

554
00:53:35,878 --> 00:53:36,659
It isn't today.

555
00:53:36,659 --> 00:53:52,572
Sheriff Rainey and them in the Shoba County uh killed uh the civil rights workers and
during the first trial of the guy that killed Mager Evers.

556
00:53:54,258 --> 00:53:59,460
The murderers had to lie and say they didn't do it because murder was illegal.

557
00:54:01,204 --> 00:54:04,506
Today, we have the standard ground laws.

558
00:54:04,506 --> 00:54:14,431
uh We say, yes, we shot George Floyd, or we didn't shoot him, we choked him to death.

559
00:54:14,511 --> 00:54:20,274
Yes, we shot this one and that one across the country because we thought they had guns.

560
00:54:20,835 --> 00:54:22,375
We were threatened.

561
00:54:23,436 --> 00:54:29,079
That's harder today uh to prosecute somebody for murder.

562
00:54:29,079 --> 00:54:31,180
uh

563
00:54:31,999 --> 00:54:32,835
Trump.

564
00:54:34,929 --> 00:54:53,167
learned a lot from the McCarthy period when they used, you're a communist, uh to stop
anybody from trying to make progress, particularly in fighting for integration.

565
00:54:54,965 --> 00:55:02,612
uh McCarthy's lawyer, Roy Cohn, was Trump's lawyer up until he died.

566
00:55:03,374 --> 00:55:09,019
And Roy Cohn taught Trump how to do it.

567
00:55:09,420 --> 00:55:10,701
Call him a communist.

568
00:55:10,701 --> 00:55:14,184
Don't answer what they're saying directly.

569
00:55:14,705 --> 00:55:16,366
Call him losers.

570
00:55:16,447 --> 00:55:17,768
Use ad hoc arguments.

571
00:55:17,768 --> 00:55:19,059
Call him names.

572
00:55:20,991 --> 00:55:31,826
But it's worse today because back then we had uh government units in place to protect
people.

573
00:55:32,046 --> 00:55:44,491
And we had a president starting with Kennedy uh who to a certain extent wanted civil
rights and wanted to protect people.

574
00:55:45,032 --> 00:55:46,952
Trump learned that.

575
00:55:47,582 --> 00:55:50,239
Larry, it seems to me that.

576
00:55:52,993 --> 00:55:55,604
my father's generation.

577
00:55:57,187 --> 00:56:00,147
the World War II veterans.

578
00:56:00,147 --> 00:56:03,217
uh

579
00:56:05,397 --> 00:56:15,473
Ever since they came back, everybody wanted to have the next generation have it better
than you had it.

580
00:56:15,775 --> 00:56:16,590
Yes.

581
00:56:17,877 --> 00:56:29,881
And I think it has gotten to the point that frankly, the present generation has gotten all
too much.

582
00:56:30,262 --> 00:56:39,935
None of them know what it is to not have a home to live in, to miss a meal, to have to go
to war and put your life on the line.

583
00:56:41,693 --> 00:56:47,816
And since it's so damn good or easy, they don't care.

584
00:56:47,816 --> 00:56:53,377
They don't need to vote because I got everything I need.

585
00:56:54,517 --> 00:56:57,728
Well, the question is, how do you change that?

586
00:56:57,728 --> 00:57:02,061
oh Well, I'm about to give my opinion.

587
00:57:02,093 --> 00:57:02,482
Good.

588
00:57:02,482 --> 00:57:03,456
Let's hear it.

589
00:57:03,669 --> 00:57:08,590
uh Trump learned from the McCarthy period.

590
00:57:09,491 --> 00:57:18,193
And that's why he's dismantling the federal government, because the federal government
protected people from McCarthy.

591
00:57:18,813 --> 00:57:28,776
And the federal government uh gave people the rights, Jim, and the softer life that you're
talking about.

592
00:57:28,776 --> 00:57:32,717
uh And uh

593
00:57:34,303 --> 00:57:38,381
drilled into them that they don't have to fight for it, that they can support.

594
00:57:39,891 --> 00:57:42,463
But as I said, Trump learned from that.

595
00:57:42,463 --> 00:57:56,732
So he's dismantling uh those protections that people had that defeated McCarthy in the
courts, in various agencies.

596
00:57:57,081 --> 00:58:00,915
The Department of Education, for example, he's dismantling that.

597
00:58:00,915 --> 00:58:08,360
uh Workers' uh rights as far as health and safety rules, he's dismantling.

598
00:58:08,360 --> 00:58:10,061
uh

599
00:58:11,022 --> 00:58:15,106
He's doing that because he learned from McCarthy.

600
00:58:15,106 --> 00:58:24,813
But on the other hand, there are still many, people around that learned from McCarthy
period to learn how to fight back.

601
00:58:26,114 --> 00:58:32,239
A lot of those leaders, unfortunately, didn't use what they learned.

602
00:58:32,319 --> 00:58:39,165
And as I said before, they're just they just concentrated on winning office and not
involving people.

603
00:58:39,165 --> 00:58:40,005
But

604
00:58:40,347 --> 00:59:00,735
As people today, as students today lose their Pell grants, uh find that there are fewer
high paying jobs around, uh have rights taken away from them, which is the other side of

605
00:59:00,735 --> 00:59:02,405
what Trump's doing.

606
00:59:04,243 --> 00:59:15,056
We know how to have those people, the same people you're talking about, Jim, we know how
to get people together and fight for their own rights.

607
00:59:15,056 --> 00:59:19,397
Now that's different from saying the worst things get the better they get.

608
00:59:19,737 --> 00:59:26,599
I'm saying the worst things get the more you have to fight and the harder it is to bring
people together, but it can be done.

609
00:59:26,599 --> 00:59:29,600
And it's the bringing people together that counts.

610
00:59:29,700 --> 00:59:33,991
And even the type of people that you're talking about, I'm saying,

611
00:59:34,131 --> 00:59:39,864
I would end your sentence by saying, up till now, up till now they were that way.

612
00:59:40,525 --> 00:59:42,206
And that has to change.

613
00:59:42,246 --> 00:59:43,777
But it doesn't happen automatically.

614
00:59:43,777 --> 00:59:45,428
It doesn't happen by magic.

615
00:59:45,448 --> 00:59:47,599
It happens by hard work.

616
00:59:48,163 --> 00:59:56,592
I remember when I got out of high school, ah I had saved up enough money to buy a car
and...

617
00:59:56,592 --> 00:59:57,393
uh

618
00:59:58,554 --> 01:00:05,416
My dad told me, he said something along the lines of, know why I'm making you buy it.

619
01:00:05,696 --> 01:00:08,097
And I should probably know.

620
01:00:08,097 --> 01:00:13,858
And he said, because if you don't have some skin in the game, you're not going to take
care of the car.

621
01:00:14,178 --> 01:00:24,061
And it seems to me that we've got now at least one and possibly two generations that don't
have any skin in the game.

622
01:00:24,261 --> 01:00:27,832
And it's about to come home and it's not going to be pretty.

623
01:00:28,184 --> 01:00:37,907
Well, I was just reading an article the other day that said why the American dream is a
fantasy today.

624
01:00:38,808 --> 01:00:44,190
And they pointed out young people can no longer buy homes.

625
01:00:44,190 --> 01:00:46,771
They can no longer buy cars.

626
01:00:46,771 --> 01:00:49,152
They can no longer afford rent.

627
01:00:50,853 --> 01:00:52,753
They can't afford to get married.

628
01:00:52,753 --> 01:00:55,334
uh They just can't afford.

629
01:00:55,334 --> 01:00:57,665
The American dream has been

630
01:00:57,699 --> 01:01:08,519
placed out of people's reach that's going to catch up with the powers that be, and it's
going to to catch up with the peop

631
01:01:14,426 --> 01:01:17,632
But those are my those are our grandchildren.

632
01:01:17,814 --> 01:01:20,078
That's the future of this country.

633
01:01:20,519 --> 01:01:24,322
It could be, but uh it could be.

634
01:01:24,322 --> 01:01:37,292
But the Talmud says it is not given to us to finish the work, nor is it given to us to
ignore the work.

635
01:01:37,653 --> 01:01:41,186
In other words, we just got to keep going.

636
01:01:41,186 --> 01:01:43,218
Just got to keep moving along.

637
01:01:43,218 --> 01:01:50,173
uh Or for sure, what's going to happen is going to be a fascist state.

638
01:01:51,313 --> 01:01:58,875
It might become that even with our effort, but we know for absolute sure it's going to be
there without the effort.

639
01:01:59,342 --> 01:02:02,990
And we are well on that way there now.

640
01:02:02,990 --> 01:02:07,799
Okay, we're about, our time is about up.

641
01:02:07,881 --> 01:02:09,729
Jim, which.

642
01:02:09,729 --> 01:02:11,000
enjoyed this.

643
01:02:12,283 --> 01:02:13,864
Thank you for coming.

644
01:02:14,306 --> 01:02:17,590
Thank you for your time and thank you for your work.

645
01:02:17,865 --> 01:02:18,689
Yes.

646
01:02:18,881 --> 01:02:21,179
And thank you both very much for having me on.

647
01:02:21,179 --> 01:02:22,525
I really appreciate it.

648
01:02:22,525 --> 01:02:24,127
Well, you're quite welcome.

649
01:02:24,127 --> 01:02:26,849
And we would love to have you back.

650
01:02:26,930 --> 01:02:33,537
And maybe the next topic would be, okay, let's get organized.

651
01:02:33,537 --> 01:02:36,528
You know, it's today.

652
01:02:36,528 --> 01:02:38,603
you doing any active work now?

653
01:02:39,327 --> 01:02:44,962
Okay, so tell us how people can get in touch with you if they're interested in getting
involved.

654
01:02:45,435 --> 01:03:04,821
If you're interested in the fight to keep rural hospitals open, which is the main fight
that I'm involved in now, contact me at LWRUBIN, LWRubin at aol.com.

655
01:03:04,821 --> 01:03:11,403
We are starting a grassroots movement to protect rural hospitals.

656
01:03:11,403 --> 01:03:13,193
That's part of the fight.

657
01:03:13,581 --> 01:03:15,676
protect and expand Medicaid.

658
01:03:16,762 --> 01:03:23,339
That is so important because if you live in certain parts of the Delta and have a heart
attack, you're dead.

659
01:03:23,742 --> 01:03:25,846
You can't get to a hospital.

660
01:03:26,328 --> 01:03:28,083
true here in Marshall County.

661
01:03:30,276 --> 01:03:33,697
That's lwrubin at aol.com.

662
01:03:34,711 --> 01:03:35,517
Yes.

663
01:03:36,666 --> 01:03:43,793
Come on listeners, it's Mississippi, it's our hospitals, it's our lives.

664
01:03:44,114 --> 01:03:46,055
Let's get involved.

665
01:03:46,737 --> 01:03:48,158
Take the step.

666
01:03:48,679 --> 01:03:50,240
It's not gonna hurt.

667
01:03:50,521 --> 01:03:52,022
It's only gonna help.

668
01:03:52,716 --> 01:03:54,086
Absolutely.

669
01:03:54,267 --> 01:04:02,472
And I also want to, uh the website for SNCC, ah just looked into it this morning.

670
01:04:02,472 --> 01:04:06,294
It was just fascinating, the history of there.

671
01:04:06,294 --> 01:04:13,178
And that is snccdigital.org.

672
01:04:13,178 --> 01:04:18,721
uh So there's a lot of great stories, Larry's story is in it as well.

673
01:04:18,721 --> 01:04:20,682
uh

674
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:24,254
We do want to thank our listeners.

675
01:04:24,254 --> 01:04:30,360
We do want to thank our subscribers and also our sponsors.

676
01:04:30,461 --> 01:04:35,737
And Jim, do it.

677
01:04:35,737 --> 01:04:37,378
are not free.

678
01:04:37,378 --> 01:04:46,223
ah We have half a dozen sponsors who contribute a little money each month.

679
01:04:46,844 --> 01:04:49,605
And we need more sponsors.

680
01:04:50,086 --> 01:04:58,770
So if any of you have a few nickels and dimes left, we could certainly ah use the funds to
continue these podcasts.

681
01:04:58,770 --> 01:05:00,381
They're educational.

682
01:05:00,651 --> 01:05:04,839
ah and they're about Mississippi and that's where we live.

683
01:05:05,101 --> 01:05:06,373
Thank you, David.

684
01:05:06,530 --> 01:05:24,985
Yes, uh Once again, any questions, comments, suggestions, donations, uh please go to
mshappeningsthenumber1.com.

685
01:05:24,985 --> 01:05:26,890
And we do appreciate you.

686
01:05:27,456 --> 01:05:28,716
Absolutely.

687
01:05:29,096 --> 01:05:29,897
Absolutely.

688
01:05:29,897 --> 01:05:34,271
uh Cash App Venmo, PayPal, absolutely.

689
01:05:34,271 --> 01:05:42,461
And as always, we do want to remind you, may we never become indifferent to the suffering
of others.

690
01:05:42,461 --> 01:05:43,174
Thank you.